[Reading-hall-of-fame] The Everything Works Clearinghouse

[Thomas Sticht]

December 18, 2004

New Resource for Adult Literacy Educators:
The Everything Works Clearinghouse

Without a great deal of fanfare the field of adult literacy educators has
produced some two hundreds years of "professional wisdom" that has now
been accumulated  into this one-stop Everything Works Clearinghouse (EWC).

The EWC staff of one volunteer working part-time, as befits the field of
adult literacy education, has conducted an exhaustive review of thousands
of textbooks, teacher’s handbooks, research reports, government
evaluations, testimonial statements by students, teachers, administrators,
community leaders, government officials, business and industry leaders,
charitable foundations, restroom graffiti, and concerned citizens.

Based on all this work, the EWC is now an extremely trustworthy source of
honesty, reliability, and validity regarding what works in adult literacy
education. It confidently reports that every program, whether operational
or experimental, that anyone of these groups and/or individuals has had a
hand in funding, attending, or in other ways helping to promote and/or
operate has successfully taught some adults something relating in some way
to literacy or other basic skills, however focused or nebulously defined.

Most successful have been programs that are led by teachers using direct
instruction in a dialogic manner to form learner centered and developed
participatory, emergent curricula that focus on teaching modularized core
competencies that are mandated by the government or some business,
industry, hospital, military office, correctional facility or other
authority, and are assessed using hands-on performance-oriented
standardized tests that involve the marking of multiple choice bubbles and
fill-in-the-blanks, true and/or false, and constructed response questions,
using real world, functional,  authentic materials leading to the academic
skills needed to pass the GED or high school diploma, employment, removal
from welfare, liberation and social justice, post-secondary education,
vocational training, higher education, family and personal health and
welfare and spiritual uplifting promoting good citizenship, a reward in
the after life,  and the proper use of English language, appropriate,
accurate number calculations, success in solving a multitude of life’s
problems, and the formation of good social relationships with both
significant and insignificant others.

Fortunately extensive research by the EWC has also revealed that not just
Everything works but Everyone Who Wants to Work is also effective! No
special training, education, or other preparation is needed to teach adult
literacy. Anyone who tries succeeds.

Special note on teaching adults to read: Teaching reading with adults has
been shown to be especially easy, and one can use either Balanced or
Unbalanced approaches. Just bear in mind: Extremism in the teaching of
adult reading is no vice! Caution is no virtue!

Special note on a forthcoming report: The EWC staff is now working on a
special report on What Doesn’t Work in Adult Literacy Education. As of now
there are no entries so the report is being delayed pending the discovery
of reports by someone somewhere indicating that something does not work in
adult literacy education.

REMEMBER: This is YOUR clearinghouse! If you find that something that you
think works has not been included please notify the proper authorities in
your community.

Thank you,
The EWC Staff